Pictures

These pictures are from the first 2 days of our vacation before my camera battery died. The last 2 pictures are from my mom's camera. I took some pictures with my dad's camera at Big Lake - hopefully I can get him to e-mail them to me.

front view of The Lodge


Ev & Ro playing in the "yard". Ro's favorite thing to do was throw really big rocks :)

Kim & Ev working on a puzzle

Ben relaxing on the balcony of our room

the view from our balcony


Xan & Mikey fooling around

Max & Addy's "store"


before too long, Grandpa put the older boys to work. At one point I glanced out the window as Michael sat on the Ranger pointing to trash for Xander to pick up.

Beautiful girl

View from the road to Green's Peak

At the river in Greer. I have memories of going there when I was a child.

the river was cold and it was starting to rain

I can't wait to go up next week with Tiffany & her crew. Maybe that will motivate Tiffany to blog again...I'm just saying :)

Better late than never...

I'm really lucky. I grew up with the best dad in the world. A dad who took me to work with him. Who pulled quarters out of my ears and brought me Hawaiian Punch. Who sang, "Swing lo, sweet chari-ot" every time we would turn into the road to our house. Then he would let me drive the rest of the way home. He taught me to saddle and ride a horse. To mow and edge a lawn. To hit a baseball. He taught me to work hard. To be self sufficient. He always had time for me. Throughout grade school and jr. high he would pick me and my friends up and take us to lunch. I knew he loved me because he showed me every day. I'm so thankful that my kids have the opportunity of knowing him and learning from him. They love him as much as I do.

Speaking of great dads, I feel so lucky to be married to a man who loves being a dad. Who wrestles with his kids. Takes them swimming. And to the movies. Who teaches his boys how to clean a toliet. Or pull weeds and rake leaves. Who helps the boys clean my car after a long trip (barf and all). Evan asks me 20 times a day, "Where's dad?" Ian is his best playmate (who else will take a bat in the head without retaliating?). I love that Ian will answer our children's questions about the gospel. And they are never one word answers.

Happy Belated Father's Day to all you awesome dads out there!

Day 3

Us at Green's Peak on Wednesday. Evan refused to be in the picture.

Kim and I compiled this list together.

-Driving 1 1/2 hours to get to Big Lake only to end up in a torrential downpour

-Things to do at Big Lake in the rain: throw rocks, catch dead crawdads, fall in the lake and run away screaming in terror from friendly dogs

-Joe, Michael and Alexander see the "biggest crawdad EVER" at Chocolate Lake

-Ranger rides

-Grandpa gives the boys haircuts

-Getting ice-cold drinks at Sonic in 54 degree weather

-Spotting a giant herd of elk that the "hunter" missed. One less stop we had to make.

-Darrel texting us that Michael Jackson died. The torrential downpour masked the tears we shed for his passing. We tried to have a moment of silence but with 5 kids in the car it wasn't happening.

-North-eastern AZ has some of the most beautiful scenery in the world.

-Adding m&m's to peanut butter cookies makes them infinitely better. Xander was the only one who disagreed. He's bossy when it comes to cookies.

-Risking my life while texting on the freeway.

-oh and apparently fierce rainstorms are no match for barf. I still have throw up stuck to the side of my car.

-Ending the day watching SYTYCD. Life doesn't get much better than this.

Day 2

-Max wakes up at the crack of dawn

-Dad wakes the rest of us up while going out on our balcony to scout elk

-Ian's parents visit

-We all trek up to Greens Peak

-I almost have a panic attack driving up Greens Peak

-My camera battery dies

-We head over to Greer for ice-cream and to wade in the river

-It starts to rain and Max falls into the river

-Ben throws up out the window of the car on the way home while Evan is screaming "I WANT MY WINDOW DOWN!" and Ro is singing the ABC song

-There is dried barf all over the side of my car

-We end the night watching SYTYCD and eating nachos

Day 1

Highlights from day 1 of our adventure:

-Evan talking NON STOP all the way up

-Max taking care of Addy - carrying her purse for her, playing games with her, making a bed for her. It's so nice to see the sweet, sensitive side of Max.

-Ben playing "store" with Max & Addy

-Joe, Michael, Xander & Ben telling ghost stories and freaking each other out

-Evan drawing on the walls. And emptying hand sanitizer everywhere. And dumping out all of Grandpa's pills. Discovering and throwing bullets everywhere. Good times.

I hope I survive until Friday!

Mountain Paradise

Rain and 65 degree weather. The smell of pine. Endless room to run and roam. Life would be perfect if Ian were here too.

Pictures next week.

Another Max Moment

Max: "I'm hungry and thirsty."

Me: "I'm sorry."

Max: "Do you think saying sorry is making me feel better?

Me: "No, but we already had dinner and you chose not to eat it."

Max: "What - am I supposed to eat the sorry and drink out of the sorry????"

Where does this kid come up with this stuff?

Newest Addition

Yesterday I met Ruby. She was only 6 hours old. She is such a beautiful baby girl. I could've held her for hours and hours.

Addy and Ro are excited to bring their new baby sister home. Well, Addy is excited. Rowan seemed a little unsure. :)

Congratulations Darrel & Trina!

Excuses & Evan

Summer is here and my free time has virtually disappeared. Between exercising, feeding kids, swim lessons, entertaining kids, working, exercising, trying to keep up with my church calling and watching SYTYCD I have no extra time to blog. It's killing me. But in my list of things to do, this blog is down at the bottom. Since I want this blog to be a journal, I am going to try to be better.

I promise.

Maybe.

I have also been slacking in the picture taking department. I blame it on this kid.

If we are going anywhere I can't be taking pictures because I am chasing this little rug rat around. And boy, is he fast. Sometimes it feels like my entire existence is focused on keeping him alive.

Evan's new thing is jumping. He LOVES to jump. When we go to the pool he doesn't play on the slide. He just jumps around in the shallow water. He will do this for hours. If he starts to whine, I'll say, "Hey, Evan can you jump?" And he'll exclaim, "Evan is jumping!" and start to jump all over again. You'd think this would make him tired, but it really doesn't.

Evan can also count to 13. And he'll count backwards from five -he'll say, "5, 4, 3, 2, 1...GO!" His vocabulary is expanding daily. He loves to play with cars and superheros (Ironman is his current favorite). He loves to get into trouble - which usually involves him marking on some surface in the house with markers, crayons, pencils, deodrant, soap...the list goes on.

Evan also likes to "fight" his dad or brothers. Personally I think Ian is training him to be a future UFC fighter. The boy has some tough moves. And he can take it like a man. He hardly ever cries when he is hurt.

He brings so much joy and happiness to our family. It is so fun to watch him learn and grow.

Happy Day

Today the boys and I cleaned the house spotless (well, spotless except for the marks Evan made on the wall with Xander's deodrant - but at least the house smells good, right?) in preparation for a party.

Xander lit the candles:


Evan patiently waited for the guest of honor.
Everyone was happy when he finally arrived.


Especially Evan because he got to help blow out the candles.

Happy Birthday Ian!

We love you!

The goings on

This week has been so crazy. And it's going to get crazier. That's my excuse for not blogging.

Here's what we've been up to:

-Watching past seasons of So You Think You Can Dance. Currently watching Season 4 -It's so street - yes, it is.

-Swim lessons began. Evan lasted 2 minutes through his first lesson and then I quit. I can't handle the screaming. I accidentally put Ben in the wrong lesson so he is in a class with younger kids. But he doesn't mind. Max has a friend from school in his class. Xander is breezing through the highest class. So besides Evan, everyone else is having fun.

-Cleaning/reorganizing. Trying to get ready to move Xander to the downstairs bedroom, Ben into Xander's room and Evan in with Max. We separated the bunkbeds and the boys LOVE that.

-Working for dad. Stress-ful at the moment.

-Planning a baby shower for Tricia (yay!)

-Trying to keep my house clean. It's killing me. Mostly because Evan feels the need to express himself artistically on the walls and floor. Thank goodness for the magic eraser.

-Evan now tells jokes: Evan: "Guess What?" Me: "What?" Evan: "Chicken Butt!" We then had a long conversation about how we don't use the word "butt". I don't think he got it.

What have you been up to?

I love movies

I love going to the movies. Except for when I get bored or I just don't get the movie. Like the time Ian and I went to see "Burn After Reading" and were so bored that we left and snuck into "Tropic Thunder" which was one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. Hands down. I am laughing just thinking about it.

I love the summer movie season. My system for rating movies is simple - it has to keep me entertained so that I don't look at my watch wondering how much longer I have to sit in the theater. There are so many good movies - we've seen Wolverine, Star Trek and Up and we can't wait to see Transformers 2 and Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (which was my favorite book, btw). I really liked Wolverine. I loved how it totally meshed with the other X-men movies and I LOVED the character Gambit. I really hope they put him in the next movie too.

But my favorite movie I've seen this year has been Star Trek. Maybe it's because J.J. Abrams is a genius (LOST - anyone?). But I loved it. You don't have to be a fan of the show to like this movie. It has action (wayyy lot of action), romance, humor and emotion. I might have teared up a few times (I'm getting really mushy in my old age). The guy that played Kirk was cute but I really liked the guy that played Spock. Dude, he WAS Spock. And he was kinda hot. Ian said the guy plays a bad guy on Heroes. I might have to start watching that show now.

What has been your favorite movie so far this year?

Maximum Max

I've been wanting to post about Star Trek, but that will have to wait since this week has been jammed packed full of Max. Last week was my older boys' last week of school and this week is Max's. Yesterday I helped out at their end of the year party - it was a loads of fun. Especially since I got to help at the cookie center and ate lots of sugar cookies and frosting. I do love food. When the class started their limbo contest and dance contest - Max leaned over to me and whispered, "Can we go?" So we did. :)

Getting his diploma

Today was Max's kindergarten graduation. Even though we'll be doing it again next year, I still got a little teary eyed. That kid can be so onery, but I love him so much. He brings so much joy and laughter to my life. It's so hard to see him getting older.

Showing dad his work

Max & his teacher - she was AWESOME!

Swim-tastic!

It wasn't insane at all. In fact, it was lots of fun. What a great group of boys!